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Capote: The Child Behind the Legend
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lthough Truman Capote’s public reputation would eventually overshadow his literary accomplishments, his early career established him as one of the most innovative authors of his generation.
CHILDHOOD Capote’s journey to literary notoriety was a difficult one. He was born on September 30, 1924, to Lillie Mae and Arch Persons in New Orleans. His mother, a small-town beauty without the patience or maturity to care for her son, often left Capote to fend for himself, eventually—after her marriage fully dissolved—in the care of distant relatives in Monroeville, Alabama. Although Capote’s feelings of abandonment would haunt him the rest of his life, there were glimmers of happiness in his childhood. He, his elderly cousin Miss Sook, and his tomboyish friend and fellow future-writer Harper Lee spent many happy hours together, stirring in young Capote the imagination that would eventually spark his fictional work. Capote was sent back to live with his mother and her new husband in New York City in 1932, but it was hardly the joyful family reunion he hoped for. Private school and later military academy failed to offer solace, either; Capote was frequently bullied for his diminutive size; and unchallenged by his classes, he had little interest in proving himself academically.
THE YOUNG WRITER Despite the lack of encouragement, Capote was always a storyteller. He taught himself to read by watching over the shoulder of his older relatives and reading with his cousin Sook, and he was often the leader of childhood adventures with Harper Lee. During these early years especially, writing was a sanctuary. After being fired from his first job at The New Yorker, Capote pursued writing full-time, publishing several short stories while working on his first novel. It wasn’t until he returned to his Monroeville roots, however, that his first
Truman Capote, age 4 full-length work came to be; while staying at his childhood home to focus on his novel—then a New York City social commentary called Summer Crossing—Capote was inspired to write a totally different story, a coming-of-age novel about a lonely and effeminate young boy who travels to Alabama to meet his father. Published in 1948 when Capote was only 24 years old, Other Voices, Other Rooms was an instant success—but it spurred as much controversy as it did praise, both for its homosexual undertones and the erotically charged photograph of Capote on the book jacket.
EARLY FAME Capote’s literary success gave him access to the biggest names in film, literature, and celebrity. His striking behavior and voice, as well as outspoken personality and love for the spotlight, quickly made him one of the most popular figures in the literary scene. He followed the success of Other Voices, Other Rooms with a collection of short stories, A Tree of Light, published in 1949. Not one to stay out of the public eye for long, Capote’s travel essays were published in book form in 1950 as Local Color, and his much-anticipated second novel, The Grass Harp, was released in the fall of 1951. Capote’s personal life also took a successful turn after meeting author Jack Dunphy, who was 10 years his senior, in 1948. They spent many of their early years traveling abroad while working on —Joe Capote their respective writing projects. (Truman’s stepfather) Even in Capote’s later years, when addiction took toxic control over his life and he was unable to sustain a close, constant relationship, Dunphy continued to support his partner. Capote was brazenly outspoken about his homosexuality, and although he was never a direct advocate for the early gay rights movement, his openness was monumental for the time.
“Truman was reluctant to be an ordinary fellow. He had to be himself.”
A CHRISTMAS MEMORY Amid this whirlwind of fame and success, Capote published A Christmas Memory in 1956. He wrote this story right on the cusp of some of his most seminal works of literature and nonfiction—Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and In Cold Blood (published in 1965, although he started working on the book in 1959)—after he had already published Other Voices, Other Rooms and The Grass Harp, also very autobiographical. In Cold Blood would artfully combine literature and journalism and revolutionize both fields. Although it became his most significant work, the subsequent fame eventually led to a downward spiral for Capote, who was as intoxicated by celebrity as he was by drugs and alcohol. In later years, the literary brilliance of his writing faded next to his controversial public persona.
‘You’re a Sissy’
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apote’s outspkenness about his sexuality would later contribute to his immense celebrity. As a child, however, he endured years of bullying, as well as pressure from his mother; Lillie Mae, terrified that her son might be gay, went to extremes to “cure” him of his effeminate traits. Excerpted from Capote: A Biography: People in Monroeville had already marked Truman down as a sissy, and for almost as far back as memory carried him, he had been aware that he was the subject of talk, someone both his parents and his Faulk relations thought they had to defend and make excuses for. Lillie Mae’s sisters refused to even let their children play with him because of his “sissyish traits.” ...Yet no one was more aware that something was wrong than Truman himself. For much of his childhood, until he was nine or so, he found being a boy so demanding and burdensome that he actually wanted to be a girl. “I didn’t feel as if I were imprisoned in the wrong body. I wasn’t transsexual. I just felt that things would be easier if I were a girl.” Lillie Mae, who had always been hypersensitive to the opinions of other people, was more than concerned; she was obsessed. Her problem with Truman was never far from her mind, and she made certain that it was never far from his mind either. She nagged him, bullied him, and belittled him. When nothing she said or did helped, she took him to two different psychiatrists in hopes of finding a cure, a drug or therapy that would turn him into a real boy. One suggested that she not worry, promising her that the traits she disliked would disappear as he grew older. Whatever it was the other said to her, it annoyed her so much that she refused to tell even Joe what it was, leading him to suspect that the psychiatrist blamed no one but her for Truman’s odd behavior. She gave up on psychiatry after that, but she did not give up on her search for a remedy. “She was always very worried about him” Joe said. “She wanted him to be an ordinary fellow, straight in every way. But Truman was reluctant to be an ordinary fellow. He had to be himself.”
Truman’s Monroeville, Alabama: 1930
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lthough the U.S. stock market crash of October 1929 is often seen as the beginning of the Great Depression, in Alabama and elsewhere, the crash exacerbated an already existing decline in agriculture that had begun much earlier in the decade and spread statewide to cities and industries thereafter. The Depression’s impact on Alabama lasted throughout the 1930s and, for some Alabamians, into the early 1940s. President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal provided relief for many facing dire poverty, but the Depression truly ended only with the economic boom that followed the state’s mobilization because of World War II. American agriculture had been struggling as early as 1921. In Alabama, cotton prices dropped to the lowest levels since the 1880s. By 1929, industries, the backbone of prosperity in the “Roaring Twenties,” experienced a decline in consumption as farmers could no longer afford to buy consumer goods and the overall market for goods had become fairly saturated. As industries scaled back production, they fired workers, leading to increased unemployment. Alabama’s farm families experienced the first pangs of the Depression when cotton prices plummeted. Unable to make a living on cotton, some farmers left to find work in cities, while others fell deeper into debt and tenancy. Many farm families lived on the brink of starvation and bankruptcy during good years, so the Depression forced those on the land to focus on long-term survival. Farmers ate less meat and more filling and inexpensive starches, like beans and corn, and wore clothes made out of burlap feed and fertilizer sacks. Tenants and sharecroppers moved to find better contracts and traveled farther and more often as the Depression
Unemployment 1933: 24 percent Price of cotton 1921: 35 cents/pound 1932: 5 cents/pound Number of landowners 1920: 96,000 1930: 75,000
Average farm size 1920: 75 acres 1930: 68 acres Farm value 1920: $3,803 1930: $2,375 Personal annual income 1929: $311 1935: $194
An Alabamian family, 1935 worsened. Having less food, fewer clothes, and little money, many rural Alabamians ceased going to school, church, and other social functions. Industries were hit later by the Depression, so some farmers left their land for the mills and mines of larger cities. But when the Depression spread into the cities in the early 1930s, the state witnessed an urban exodus, with many people who had fled land turning back to sharecropping and tenant farming. In fact, the 1930s serve as a demographic
anomaly, as thousands of laid-off workers relocated to the countryside in the hopes of surviving off of the land. This shift from town to country placed new pressure on land that was already stressed from inefficient farming practices, a reliance on soil-depleting cash crops, and soil erosion. When combined with historically low commodity prices and a lack of credit, these conditions made it even more difficult for farm families to survive.
‘It’s fruitcake weather!’
Eight fun facts about America’s contested holiday treat
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The Egyptians buried pharaohs with fruitcake in their tombs to represent the sacred food of the afterlife. Roman soldiers and eventually Middle Age crusaders brought fruitcake with them to the battlefields. Fruitcake was outlawed in the18th century for being “sinfully rich”; the law was eventually repealed, since fruitcake had become an important part of the tea hour. Johnny Carson, famed host of The Tonight Show, once said, “The worst gift is fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world and people keep sending it to each other.” In 1969, astronauts ate fruitcake as part of their second meal aboard Apollo 11, alongside beef stew and cream of chicken soup. Despite its dubious modern reputation, some 2,952 pounds of fruitcake were delivered to American soldiers in Iraq in 2006.
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The average fruitcake weighs two pounds and serves six to seven people. Its immense shelf life is due to its moisture-stabilizing properties, mainly sugar: sugar’s high density reduces the cake’s water content, and therefore its ability to bind to microorganisms. Most fruitcake aficionados make their cakes months in advance, allowing the flavors to deepen. It’s also common for the baker to “feed” the fruitcake by pouring whiskey, brandy, or rum over the loaf. The Annual Great Fruitcake Toss takes place in Manitou Springs, Colorado every January, and includes trophies for fruitcake catching, accuracy, and best-in-show. According to a 2006 study, the ratio density of the average fruitcake is 1:1 with mahogany, and fruitcakes can remain edible up to 25 years with the right ingredients and storage.
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Recipe for Miss Sook’s Famous Rum Fruitcake Miss Sook had dozens of fruitcake recipes and began preparations months before Christmas. Marie Rudisill, Truman’s aunt, later collected and published Miss Sook’s fruitcake recipes.
Ingredients 1 pound dried currants 1/2 pound dried citron (cut into thin slivers) 1/2 pound dried figs (coarsley chopped) 4 cups raisins 1-1/2 cups blanched almonds 1 cup cooked prunes (drained, chopped) 1 cup pitted dates, chopped 1 cup candied cherries 1/2 cup diced candied orange peel 3 cups dark rum 1 cup butter 2 cups brown sugar (firmly packed) 5 eggs 2 cups flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon 1-1/2 teaspoons nutmeg 1-1/2 allspice 1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions 1. Combine the first nine ingredients in a large mixing bowl (currants through orange peel). 2. Pour rum over the mixture and let it steep for at least seven days, stirring occasionally. 3. Work butter until it is soft and gradually add the brown sugar, working the mixture until smooth. 4. Beat in two eggs. 5. Sift flour with baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and salt. 6. Stir one cup of the flour mixture into the butter mixture. 7. Beat in three eggs and add the rum-soaked fruits and nuts and remaining flour mixture. Mix batter thoroughly. 8. Spoon into loaf pans (any size you choose), oiled, lined with brown paper, and oiled again. 9. Bake the cakes in a slow oven at 275° F for about three hours, or until cakes test done. 10. Place cakes on a wire rack until they are almost cool. Remove from the pans and peel off paper carefully. 11. Wrap the cakes in cheesecloth and store in an airtight container for about one month.